Starbucks ‘Rebellion’ Reaches NJ, What Customers Should Know

In what has become the longest unfair labor practice strike in Starbucks history, baristas in New Jersey are now also taking off their aprons and taking to the streets.

More than 3,000 baristas from 145 stores across 105 cities have joined what’s been dubbed the “Red Cup Rebellion,” a movement led by the Starbucks Workers United union.

On Thursday, Starbucks Workers United announced that 26 new Starbucks stores across the country have joined the Red Cup Rebellion, including four in New Jersey. Baristas in Ledgewood, Parsippany, Pennington, and Rockaway have replaced coffee cups with picket signs, the union announced.

The NJ stores participating in the strike remain open for now, but the Ledgewood location, for example, has resorted to a “drive-thru only” model to adapt to the circumstances.

Created in New York in 2021, Starbucks Workers United’s latest strike hit Day 22 on Thursday. The movement has announced the following “core demands:”

1. Better hours to improve staffing in our stores. Understaffing is rampant, leading to longer wait times as customer orders stream in. Yet too many baristas still aren’t getting enough hours to pay the bills or meet the threshold for benefits. Starbucks needs to invest in increasing barista hours.
2. Higher take-home pay. Too many baristas struggle to get by, while executives make millions. Starbucks needs to put more money toward baristas’ take-home pay.
3. Resolution for hundreds of outstanding unfair labor practice charges for union busting. The coffee giant has committed more labor law violations than any employer in modern history. Starbucks needs to fully resolve legal issues impacting baristas.

As protesters take to the streets, more than 200,000 workers and former customers have signed the union’s “No Contract, No Coffee” pledge to boycott the coffee giant until the open-ended strike concludes, according to the movement.

“I call on you to bargain a fair contract with Starbucks Workers United baristas,” the pledge, directed at Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, reads. “I support Starbucks baristas in their fight for a union and a fair contract, and pledge not to cross the picket line. That means I will not patronize any Starbucks store when baristas are on ULP strike.”

Niccol made 6,666 times more than the company’s typical employee last year, according to the AFL-CIO’s annual Executive Paywatch report, a pay gap that is one of, if not the largest, CEO-to-worker pay gaps in the country.

While a Starbucks spokesperson told USA Today that the Seattle-based coffee company does not “anticipate any meaningful disruption” from the Red Cup Rebellion, it did pay $35 million in settlement money to more than 15,000 New York City workers after it was discovered to have been violating the law.

The funds are to settle claims that Starbucks denied employees stable schedules and arbitrarily cut their hours. The settlement came just hours before Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders met with protesters on New York streets.

Read More: Starbucks Will Pay $35M to NYC Employees After Violating Labor Laws

With Starbucks Workers United fixated on keeping the strike open-ended until a deal is reached, and with the Red Cup Rebellion growing, there’s no way of telling when the movement will end.